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That pesky apostrophe again!
His sister was safe, and well out of harms way.
OR:
His sister was safe, and well out of harms way.
I've always been told that if you can turn a sentence round like so: well out of the way of harm, then an apostrophe is needed. But in this case, I'm having doubts.
Comments
Thanks Dorothy and Dwight.
I always have trouble with :
"One of my sons [sons'] [son's] girlfriend is coming to stay"
Now, you may think this is simple - but I have three sons. If I write, or say, 'my son's girlfriend' this is correct and unambigous, but strictly speaking, not accurate because I have not implied that I have more than one son.
If I say 'sons' [sons's] girlfriend' it is unweildy and still not accurate.
I usually say 'the girlfriend of one of my sons'
:-)
Try this:
Ken Dodds Dads Dog Dans dead. :-)
girlfriend is singular but sons is plural, so it implies that they all share the one girlfriend.
In spoken language, however, it will be understood as "my son's girlfriend," which of course, is ambiguous if
it's not known which son you are talking about. Otherwise, it's fine.
"The girlfriend of one of my sons," is by far the best, especially in spoken language where
folk cannot see where the apostrophe is placed, and when they don't know which son
you are referring to.
It is not lost on me that this solution could also lead to misunderstandings about the number of girlfriends each son has! I suppose it boils down to whether you are keen to stress the implication of multiple sons OR whether each only has one girlfriend!
It might be easier to always invite all three at once of course.
Here's the link -
http://www.writersnews.co.uk/writers_talkback/comments.php?DiscussionID=159602&page=1#Item_0
But clearly it is not wrong to put punctuation in it nowadays, otherwise it would mean it being unreadable to many today. If you wrote out his plays as they were written by the author, they'd be incomprehensible. But that is impossible because none of the original documents survive. The only thing to survive of Shakepeare's writing are signatures on his will and tenant agreements or stuff like that. And they are the signatures quite frankly of someone illiterate. Or who doesn't write much... So it doesn't really add up...
Yep, Stirling's lucky to have him/her as a tutor!
I have to add an apostrophe. If Shakespeare doesn't like it, tough.
Then, I thought the apostrophe must be wrong, so I deleted it - but that looked even more wrong - so I let it stand.
Question: So should I have deleted it or not?
'It's' used to drive me nuts. 'It's' is used as a shorten form of 'it is' where 'its' is again about possession: 'Its chain had snapped.'
Listen to me, you would think I am a grammar expert. :D
Editors, like tutors don't have much time for poor grammar. :D
If in doubt use the full words not the contraction:
'It is chain had snapped.' Without contraction.
'Its chain had snapped.' Possession.
My character might have lots of hail mary's to say - as in lots of prayers? Sorry, non-catholic here so don't know precisely how the hail mary system works - just know you have to say them to expiate your sins. So if one hail mary equals one prayer, then that's lots of prayers; i.e. lots of hail mary's.
So presumably the apostrophe should be there?